Rashid to the rescue

A peacock which had been stranded for nearly 20 hours outside Amy and Nilufer Mistry’s fourth floor apartment in New Khareghat Colony on Hughes Road was rescued at the initiative of photographer Rashid D. Bamanbehram. The bird had been clinging to a pipe on the external wall and Nilufer fed it some bread and chappati before informing Baman­behram about its predicament.

The photographer, himself a resident of old Khareghat Colony, conveyed to Parsiana that he reached the spot post haste and got in touch with the Fire Brigade control room. Rescue operations commenced speedily under the supervision of Gowalia Tank Fire Brigade station officer Harish Narkar with a fireman climbing out of a window of the apartment to rescue the peacock. However, the alarmed bird darted in the opposite direction, colliding with the wall of the building and falling to the ground where the driver of the fire engine deftly caught it and a fireman bore it off to the Gowalia Tank fire station, Bamanbehram mentions.

(Left) stranded bird; Rashid Bamanbehram (3rd from l) and Fire Brigade personnel with rescued peacock.

Behram Marker, who witnessed the incident, requested the fire officer to release the bird in the wild. Narker, however, first contacted the Madhav Mandir Trust which sent a veterinarian to examine the peacock. After the necessary medication was administered, and permission to release it was obtained, Marker personally escorted the fireman in his car and had the peacock released in the nearby forested area, where it happily flew away to a safe refuge.